


By His Side

by cricket_aria



Category: Persona 3
Genre: Cooking, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2017-09-10
Packaged: 2018-12-25 23:07:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12046212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cricket_aria/pseuds/cricket_aria
Summary: It was the first time he'd ever been the one to ask her out.  She just wasn't expecting it to be for hanging around a grocery store.





	By His Side

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tren](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tren/gifts).



It was maybe just the _tiniest_ bit sad how happy Minako had been when Shinjiro had asked her to come with him. It was the first time that she hadn’t been the one initiating time they spent together outside of the dark hour. She’d just happened to be there when he’d come downstairs and had pulled her attention away from Phoenix Ranger Featherman R to watch him yank his coat on.

(Not that Phoenix Ranger had been that much of a pull. The more she got to know Shinjiro the more it felt like nothing else could hold her attention when he was in the room. Not even Feather Swan being caught in a fiendish mental trap set up by the villain of the day that he had to solve to save the rest of the team could compare.)

At the door he’d paused and looked at her silently for one long moment, then jerked his head towards the street outside. “Come on then,” he’d said, and in those three words, so confident that of course she’d be going wherever he went off to with him, was all the proof she needed that he was starting to see her the same way she was starting to see him; as the person who should obviously be at the spot by her side whenever they were both free.

She’d pretty much expected, just based on precedent, that wherever they were going would involve food. The place they ended up turning out to be a grocery store wasn’t _too_ surprising either, considering how often the others had been bugging him to make everyone dinner again. But the fact that he didn’t seem to have any intention of buying anything was a little bit of a surprise.

Instead he stalked up and down the rows with a small notebook in his hand, stopping often to scribble things down. He hardly even seemed aware that she was there, almost silent other than an order right after they’d arrived to let him know if she saw anyone who worked there starting to look annoyed at their loitering. Minako would have said completely truthfully that just watching Shinjiro could make her happy, but it was getting a little bit silly.

“Okay,” she finally said in the baking aisle, as she peeked at the page he was scribbling away at; in the careful characters of someone with normally messy handwriting trying to be legible she could make out something that started as a list of substitute thickening agents that quickly went off the rails into a list of ways _not_ to add them to a dish for god’s sake, “Just what are you working on?”

He started slightly, like he’d gotten so caught up in what he was doing that he’d forgotten she was there, then glanced over at her and rubbed the back of his head with the hand holding his pencil. “Oh, uh, cheat sheet,” he said. “Sorry, guess I haven’t been the best company tonight.”

“Maybe not!” she agreed, laughing when he looked even more sheepish. She leaned back against a shelf, bags of flour shifting behind her shoulders, to look up at him more comfortably, “But it’s okay, Senpai, I’d rather be here than home watching TV. I’d like to hear about what you’re working on though!”

“It’s for Fuuka,” he said, ruffling back through the pages so she could see how many he’d filled in. She caught snatches of the writing on them here and there, not enough to make out any real details but just mentions of vegetables here, sauces there, things that had been in the sections they’d already passed through. “That kid likes her notes. Figured I could set her up with something more useful than just what she works out from her mistakes. And that coming here would make it easier then just trying to think up what to put in them.”

“I’m surprised,” she said, curling her fingers under the cool metal of one of the shelves at her back and cocking her head to the side, teasing, “You didn’t seem like you liked notes. You’ll be giving poor Fuuka mixed messages after making her stop with her own.”

“I _don’t_ ,” he agreed, a surprising amount of force in his voice over such a small thing. “Not the way she does it, anyway, getting so caught up in writing down every little reaction that she loses focus on what’s happening and everything ends up wrecked. You know how much good food she must've wasted? Watching and doing’s working out a lot better for her. But she needs something for when I’m not around to teach her.”

“Senpai, it’s not like we’re going to kick you out once the Midnight Hour ends! Or, I mean, if the school starts paying enough attention to force us to it’s not like we won’t still let you hang around. You’ll have plenty of time to teach her to do better.”

He looked away, his face twisting for such a brief moment that she thought she must have imagined it, and gruffly said, “…Yeah.” Then he seemed to focus on what his gaze had happened to fall on further down the aisle and tucked the notebook into his pocket. “I think that’s enough for tonight. Herbs are gonna take awhile, probably better get to that right at the start next time. You eaten yet tonight?”

She laughed and pushed herself away from the shelves, “I knew we’d get there sometime. Let’s go have dinner.”

“What’s your favorite food anyway?” he asked as they walked away, “Gotta make sure she knows how to make that well.”

“You’re so sweet, Senpai!” She beamed at him, the smile only growing brighter when she noticed him blush faintly in response. “But I’m really easy, it’ll be hard to teach her anything I _don’t_ like.”

“That’s no answer,” he said, nudging her with his shoulder. “C’mon, maybe there’s nothing you’re totally nuts about, but there’s gotta be something you like best.”

“Mmm… teach her to make a good hotpot, how about that? Something we can all enjoy together." She nudged him back but let her arm stay there, pressed against his, relaxing when he didn't try to pull away. "It's been a long time since there was anyone I could..." she started, but the words trying to follow stuck in her throat, her tongue refusing to twist around them, and all she could finish with was, "...I think that’s what I want best.”

The night was turning so sweet. She didn't want to sour it with talk about life without her parents. Soon though, maybe. Minako thought that she wanted him to know.

She could feel him looking down at her, and just for a moment his hand beside her's shifted, his fingers linking through her's and squeezing before sliding right back out again, even such brief contact leaving her palm tingling and warm. “Alright, sukiyaki it is!" he said, his voice purposefully light, "Ha, should even be an easy one, how could she manage to screw it up?”


End file.
